Twenty three years too late

Have you been through geography classes that involved endless hours staring at an India map?

Colouring the mountains, the fertile plains, the rivers and what not?

Trying hard to remember exactly which were the states that went into the North-Eastern bit?

In one such Geography class, a ten-year old me was seated in front of yet another map.

This time of West Bengal

Marking out the districts in the state.

I diligently coloured and named all of them.

Then doubt began to gnaw my mind.

If Calcutta (as it was then called) was supposed to be the largest city in the country, then why was the district of 24 Parganas larger than Calcutta?

Clearly after a whole month of classes, the concept of districts being distinct from cities was not something I had caught on.

And so I sat with a completed test paper on my desk, hovering over the map. Till I finally decided to just create a new district called ‘Calcutta’.

Of course the paper came back with a big red mark provided by an exasperated teacher.

Today I read that Kolkata (as it is called now) will start functioning as a district.

Call me visionary?